]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2019/01/14/professor-patricia-jean-langhorne-honored-by-the-queen/feed/0timkerr37Trevor Chinn 1938 – 2018https://sirg.org.nz/2018/12/21/trevor-chinn-1938-2018/
https://sirg.org.nz/2018/12/21/trevor-chinn-1938-2018/#respondThu, 20 Dec 2018 20:49:35 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=874Continue reading →]]>It is with great sadness that the New Zealand branch of the International Glaciological Society and the wider snow and ice research community acknowledge the passing of Dr Trevor Chinn.
Trevor died yesterday morning (20th December 2018) following a recent stroke.

Trevor was an integral part of snow and ice research in New Zealand for over 50 years. His knowledge of the New Zealand and Antarctica cryosphere was immense, he had an impressive publication record, and undoubtedly, the best known knowledge of glaciers large and small across the entire Southern Alps. His passion for the mountains, and drive to better understand snow and ice processes, meant that Trevor spent many hours in the field. He was a key player in the initiation of New Zealand’s first glacier mass balance programmes on Tasman and Ivory Glaciers, and later pioneered the end-of-summer snowline monitoring programme, which has evolved to one of the most comprehensive glacier data sets in the Southern Hemisphere. Trevor had an energy and spark that was contagious. He loved to engage with students and delighted in encouraging the next generation of scientists – especially with a cheeky challenge to their hypothesis or interpretation.

Trevor’s outgoing personality meant that he was not only good at doing science but great at communicating science. He was the go-to person for media and education. His ability to take complex scientific processes and explain them to a general audience was legendary, especially the way his animated explanations were often accompanied by one of his original glacier-cartoons!

Trevor was awarded a Doctor of Science from the University of Canterbury in 2007, having completed a Masters in Geology there back in 1975.

In 2016, in recognition of his outstanding service and contribution to glaciological research in New Zealand and Antarctica, the International Glaciological Society awarded Trevor with the prestigious Richardson Medal.

Our hearts and thoughts go out to Trevor’s family and friends, and to all those whom this ‘glaciologist- extraordinaire’ touched during his amazing life.

A memorial service is being planned to celebrate Trevor’s life in the New Year. We will provide details of this nearer the time.

]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2018/12/21/trevor-chinn-1938-2018/feed/0timkerr372019 Meeting is to be in Kurow from the 20th to 22nd February.https://sirg.org.nz/2018/09/20/2019-meeting-is-to-be-in-kurow-from-the-20th-to-22nd-february/
https://sirg.org.nz/2018/09/20/2019-meeting-is-to-be-in-kurow-from-the-20th-to-22nd-february/#respondWed, 19 Sep 2018 18:35:28 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=856Continue reading →]]>The 2019 SIRG meeting is to be held at Kurow on from the 20th to 22nd of February. See the first meeting announcement for details.

To follow is a copy of the email sent out on the SIRG email list by Heather Purdie, the New Zealand correspondent to the International Glaciolocal Society.

Kia ora SIRG,

Another year has almost passed so here is a quick run-down on some of the 2017 SIRG highlights…

2017 kicked off with the’ International Symposium on the Cryosphere in a Changing Climate’ hosted at VUW in Wellington. Thanks to all SIRG members who helped to make this an exciting and successful symposium. Check out the latest issue of ICE for some great accounts of the symposium and field trips. https://www.igsoc.org/ice/2017/173/ice173_col.pdf

Glacier Monitoring

Out of our 3100+ glaciers only Brewster and Rolleston have ongoing mass balance programmes. 2017 saw the Brewster programme, led by Brian Anderson (VUW) and Nicolas Cullen (Otago), enter its 13th year, while the Rolleston programme, led by Tim Kerr (Aqualinc) and Heather Purdie (UC), entered its 7th consecutive year. Thanks to all SIRG members who give their time to help with these important field programmes.

Ongoing monitoring of Franz Josef Glacier/Kā Roimata o Hine Hukatere (Brian Anderson) and Fox Glacier/Te Moeka o Tuawe (Heather Purdie & Brian Anderson) indicate that Franz has been slowly advancing since December 2016, and while the advance is small so far, the glacier continues to thicken upstream. In a similar vein, Fox is starting to thicken upstream, although this signal has not yet stimulated any action at the terminus.

The NIWA EOSS programme is now into its 40th consecutive year. This is an extremely valuable monitoring programme and database, and we hope that it continues for another 40 years!

Sabine Baumann (Technical University of Munich) has been working with a number of SIRG members to update the NZ Glacier Inventory which will be presented at AGU in December.

Congratulations

Special congratulations to Andrew Mackintosh on his promotion to Professor of Earth and Climate Sciences at Victoria University.

Funding Success

Dan Price (UC) has been awarded a Marsden Fast-start for research on Antarctic sea ice thickness.

David Prior (Otago), Huw Horgan (VUW), Christina Hulbe (Otago), and colleagues, have had Marsden success for research aiming to develop new flow laws for ice sheets.

A number of SIRG members have been successful securing funding for various other projects including (but not limited to) Ian Fuller (Massey), Sam McColl (Massey) and colleagues have received funding from the Brian Mason Scientific and Technical Trust for research on the response of the Franz Josef and Fox Glacier valleys to climate variability and glacier retreat. Heather Purdie (UC), Tim Kerr (Aqualinc) and colleagues also secured Brian Mason funding to help reinvigorate snow research at Broken River ski field. David Prior and colleagues received a University of Otago Research Grant to improve understanding of mechanical anisotropy of ice. Andrew Mackintosh (VUW) and colleagues secured funding from The Deep South National Science Challenge to undertake research on the impact of climate change to NZ’s frozen water resources. This last project is a truly collaborative effort, bringing together nine NZ snow and ice researchers from a range of NZ institutions!

Merijn Thornton MSc (VUW, pending) The Response of Brewster Glacier to Five Decades of Climate.

Publications

There have been a number of excellent publications by our SIRG members this year; too many to list here. Below is a selection of publications from some of our SIRG post-graduates. I will forward all the other citations SIRG members sent to me to Tim Kerr, who maintains the SIRG Bibliography. Please remember to send Tim your citations so that he can keep our SIRG page up-to-date. https://sirg.org.nz/about/bibliography/

]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2017/12/04/2017-highlights/feed/0timkerr372018 NZ Snow and Ice Research Group annual meeting registrations openhttps://sirg.org.nz/2017/11/08/2018-nz-snow-and-ice-research-group-annual-meeting-registrations-open/
https://sirg.org.nz/2017/11/08/2018-nz-snow-and-ice-research-group-annual-meeting-registrations-open/#respondWed, 08 Nov 2017 06:02:08 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=771Continue reading →]]>The next meeting of the New Zealand Snow and Ice Research Group is to be held at Mt Hutt Retreat near Methven from the 7th to 9th February 2018.

The location is at the foot of the Southern Alps with the mighty Rakaia River and its glacial geomorphological marvels a short field trip away.

Please download the SIRG2018_FirstCircular, register and submit your abstract now and participate in New Zealand’s most fascinating (and possibly least formal) academic meeting!

]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2017/11/08/2018-nz-snow-and-ice-research-group-annual-meeting-registrations-open/feed/0timkerr37Could the temperature eleven millennium ago been the same as a century ago?https://sirg.org.nz/2017/07/09/could-the-temperature-eleven-millennium-ago-been-the-same-as-a-century-ago/
https://sirg.org.nz/2017/07/09/could-the-temperature-eleven-millennium-ago-been-the-same-as-a-century-ago/#respondSat, 08 Jul 2017 21:09:29 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=543Continue reading →]]>In March 1866 Julius Von Haast made a drawing of the debris-covered Ramsay Glacier 300 m below him1. He was atop Mein’s Knob, a vantage point from which he described the view as “…second to none in New Zealand”.

Haast noted he was standing near glacial moraine remnants which meant that at some previous time the Ramsay glacier must have been 300 m thicker and abutted right up to near the top of Mein’s Knob. He considered this evidence that the Southern Alps had, in the past, been subject to a climate different to what he was experiencing.

From about the same time, New Zealand began a systematic programme of temperature observations. We now know that the climate during Haast’s time was 1oC cooler than now2.

About 150 years later, Tobias (Toby) Koffman and colleagues3 sampled the quartz from the moraines on Mein’s Knob, and found they had been exposed to the atmosphere for 11 600 years. This is a continuation of amazing work being done to date moraines in the Southern Hemisphere and sort out the global extent of climate variations. Dr Koffman’s group applied a computer model to find what climate was required to enable a glacier to deposit moraines on Mein’s Knob. They found that the temperature would need to be 1o less than today. The same temperature as during Haast’s time when the glacier was 300 m lower.

For the same temperature, Koffman and Haast have two different sized glaciers. Is that possible? Is it likely? Is there a plausible explanation?
Was the temperature eleven millenium ago the same as it was a century ago?

]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2017/07/09/could-the-temperature-eleven-millennium-ago-been-the-same-as-a-century-ago/feed/0timkerr37Haast - Ramsay Glacier from Meins Knob 1866Have New Zealand’s glaciers advanced as a result of an accounting audit?https://sirg.org.nz/2017/05/16/have-new-zealands-glaciers-advanced-as-a-result-of-an-accounting-audit/
https://sirg.org.nz/2017/05/16/have-new-zealands-glaciers-advanced-as-a-result-of-an-accounting-audit/#respondMon, 15 May 2017 22:28:23 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=449Continue reading →]]>Have you ever noticed how companies sometimes attribute step changes in their finances to “accounting procedure adjustments”.

The same may just be true for New Zealand’s glacier volume.

Measuring glacier volume is very difficult, so estimating it using models is a preferred approach. The choice of model affects the result. A new paper by Daniel Farinotti1 and no fewer than 36 co-authors (including Brian Anderson from Victoria University of Wellington) investigated this model-choice effect. Farintto and friends collected glacier depth observations from 21 glaciers around the world (including New Zealand,s Brewster and Tasman Glaciers). They then sent out a call to glaciologists to model the depths of those glaciers, but he didn’t give them the observed data. After the depths were modeled, they compared the results to the observations. 17 models were applied to 21 glaciers. None of the models proved superior to the others, and their skill varied widely, though combining them led to estimates that were on average within 10 % of the observed values, which you could argue, is pretty good.

In New Zealand, the total glacier volume has previously been estimated2 at 53.3 km3, 63 km3 and 67 km3. The largest of those estimates was prepared using a “shear-stress-based approach”, and is one of the model-types tested in Farinotti’s experiment. For the Tasman glacier, this model type, and the average of all the models in the experiment, underestimated the Tasman’s depth. As the Tasman dominates the glacier ice volume of the Southern Alps, the results of Farinotti’s work indicate we have more ice in New Zealand’s glaciers than previously estimated.

Thanks to Farinotti, an accounting procedure may have just given New Zealand a glacial advance!

]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2017/05/16/have-new-zealands-glaciers-advanced-as-a-result-of-an-accounting-audit/feed/0timkerr37NZ Glaciology on TVhttps://sirg.org.nz/2017/01/30/nz-glaciology-on-tv/
https://sirg.org.nz/2017/01/30/nz-glaciology-on-tv/#respondMon, 30 Jan 2017 02:03:28 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=436Wild New Zealand, a TV series currently showing on NZ’s television 1 on Sunday nights at 8, featured Dr Brian Anderson and New Zealand glaciers.
The episode is available from TVNZ on demand for the next fortnight:https://www.tvnz.co.nz/ondemand/wild-new-zealand/29-01-2017/series-1-episode-2
]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2017/01/30/nz-glaciology-on-tv/feed/0timkerr37Review of the last 10 years of New Zealand alpine processes research publishedhttps://sirg.org.nz/2016/12/08/review-of-the-last-10-years-of-new-zealand-alpine-processes-research-published/
https://sirg.org.nz/2016/12/08/review-of-the-last-10-years-of-new-zealand-alpine-processes-research-published/#respondWed, 07 Dec 2016 23:13:53 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=409Continue reading →]]>“Advances in New Zealand Freshwater Science” has recently been published by the New Zealand Freshwater Sciences Society and the New Zealand Hydrological Society. This book provides an update of freshwater science over the last decade since the publication of “Freshwaters of New Zealand” and includes a chapter on snow and ice research. Copies of the book may be purchased from the NZ Hydrological Society.

The Alpine Processes chapter has attempted to describe all published research since 2004 related to the hydrological aspect of snow and ice. Most of that research came from members of the NZ Snow and Ice Research Group.

Like the earlier “Freshwaters of New Zealand”, this book will no doubt become a standard reference text for New Zealand hydrology.

]]>https://sirg.org.nz/2016/12/08/review-of-the-last-10-years-of-new-zealand-alpine-processes-research-published/feed/0timkerr37International Cryosphere Conference registrations openhttps://sirg.org.nz/2016/08/22/international-cryosphere-conference-registrations-open/
https://sirg.org.nz/2016/08/22/international-cryosphere-conference-registrations-open/#respondSun, 21 Aug 2016 22:23:07 +0000http://sirg.org.nz/?p=386Continue reading →]]>For six days in February next year Wellington will be overrun with scientists from around the world sharing their knowledge about how the world’s snow and ice is surviving while the climate changes. The second circular for the conference has just been released and details a wide range of session themes, an exceptional selection of guest speakers and no less than three associated field trips. The conference is a joint initiative of the International Glaciological Society, the International Association of Cryospheric Sciences and the Climate and Cryosphere project of the World CLimate Research Programme.

Details of the conference including a link to the conference circular can be obtained through our “meetings” page